Page:Jay Lovestone - What's What About Coolidge.pdf/9

 protection of the laws and be supported to the extent of the power of the Commonwealth in his right to pursue a lawful occupation. I trust that you will co-operate with the duly constituted authorities of the city, state and nation to this end."

Thus did the aspiring Governor tell the workers to look for solace from the very courts that swung the heavy club of injunctions against them, and thus did Coolidge plainly tell the striking workers that they should shut up and put up, as a matter of gratitude to the country, with the Government acting as a protector of the "lawful" occupation of strikebreaking.

Many liberals, semi-Socialists and so-called Socialists have, since the ascendancy of Coolidge, to the executive chair of the Presidency passed sleepless nights pondering the legal formal responsibility of Coolidge in the 1919 Boston Police Strike. These lovers of the pure truth of the law and adamant adherents of abstract justice, whatever that may be, have been saying that it's all a lie, that Coolidge never broke the strike of police, that he is getting away with credit which is not due him, and that he has therefore been "made by a myth."

All of this might be splendid stuff for filling the columns for the liberal gullibles while the reactionary press is rejoicing at the advent of a sworn enemy of the working class into the dominating position of the Government. A brief analysis of the Boston Police Strike shows that Coolidge was the man behind the guns and that whatever strikebreaking was done he must be given the discredit for it. Let us turn to the now famous Boston City Document Number 108. This is the report on the police strike made by the "citizens'" committee appointed by Mayor Peters.

The Police Department of Boston is part of the State and not part of the municipal Government. The Police Commissioner is appointed by and responsible to the Governor. In August, 1919, the Boston policemen began to talk strike because of the wretched conditions and low pay to which they were subjected. The police began to talk of affiliating their organization with the American Federation of Labor in order to rally the maximum support of organized labor behind them in their fight. No sooner was strike talk in the air than Coolidge hastened to assure the Mayor and Police Commissioner of his support. Apropos of this phase of the strike, Barron's Weekly for August 27, 1923, said:

"But long before the strike the Governor told the Police Commissioner that he would back him absolutely in his enforcement of the regulations of the service and the laws of the Commonwealth. He brought troops into the city, nominally for drill, and quartered them at the South Armory and the Cadet Armory; there they were held at